Grist List
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Watch the winner of the first cross-country bike race cross the finish line — in 1982
In August of 1982, four men rode out of Los Angeles on the Great American Bicycle Race, the first transcontinental bike race ever — what ABC’s Wide World of Sports called “the latest bizarre product of this country’s rapidly burgeoning ultra-endurance cult.” The route began at the Santa Monica Pier, where a small crowd of […]
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Here’s a mama polar bear helping her baby to safety
It’s sort of unfortunate that polar bears have become such a symbol of the need to protect our natural world, because while I support them being alive and all, they are also cold-eyed killers that if given a chance would eat you and everyone you care about (adorable sled-dog stories notwithstanding.) But still, this is […]
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Levitating LED light bulb could easily be the coolest thing in your house
The internet is full of makers, creating homebrewed technology out of stuff they have lying around, but every so often someone makes a thing that I can totally see as the centerpiece of tomorrow’s science-fiction way of life. For instance, this levitating LED bulb.
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In Copenhagen, you can check bikes out from the bicycle library
We love a good bike share, but you have to admit that the bikes all look the same. Meanwhile, people’s bicycle preferences and needs are as varied as … well, as their taste in books. Which is why Copenhagen, always first with the bike innovations, lets you borrow bikes from the bicycle library.
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The sun’s atmosphere looks like an amazing painting
Sure, the surface of the sun is hot and all, but the sun’s atmosphere is hotter — by a factor of 1,000. And as it turns out, it’s not just hot like “will burn you up faster than a Tony Robbins seminar” hot. It’s also hot like gorrrrrrrrgeous. Scientists know that the sun’s atmosphere (the […]
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How to eat ice cream and end an unjust criminal system at the exact same time
Driving around upstate New York, you see a lot of abandoned dairy farms and a lot of struggling towns with prisons nearby. They’re connected: As milk prices dropped and the state’s dairy industry started suffering, politicians brought prisons upstate as a job-creation programs. Milk Not Jails aims to break that connection by creating economic opportunities […]
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Bike helmets looked ridiculous in 1948
Did you know that bike helmets in the 1940s looked kind of like a cross between a Devo outfit and a bouncy castle?
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Stunning map shows 11 years of U.S. wildfires
This map by John Nelson shows all major U.S. wildfires (and probably some prescribed fires) since 2001, with yellow being more intense. That bright purple over most of the country except the lucky Northeast is fires that put out maybe half as much energy as a power plant produces in the course of a year. […]
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This weird artificial jellyfish is made from the cells of a rat
Watch the video below, and consider this: “Genetically, this thing is a rat,” Harvard biophysicist Kit Parker told Nature News. But, we hear you saying, that is not a rat! It’s a jellyfish! Sorta — but it’s made from silicone and the muscle cells of a rat’s heart. When the resulting “medusoid” (“jellyfishy”) creature is […]
